Our soldiers matter!

On the issue of military retirement, our soldiers matter!

Dear future president,

I am writing this letter with the utmost respect. Thank you for the opportunity to write you on an issue that has resonated within my mind for quite sometime. military retirement. As a daughter of a mother who's in the Air Force, the question of whether or not my mom can bear the expenses of a life without an income terrifies me. It is an issue that is on the rise in America based upon the increasing population of military soldiers and retirees. We need your help in exercising your executive powers and authority.

On a personal note, l am a student of a middle-class family. I live with my mother who is a single parent of one daughter. My mother works two jobs as a level seven medical technician and a senior master sergeant in the Air Force reserve. She has served 25 long years in the reserve. She is a forty-nine year old woman who's working towards her retirement, due too poor health and numerous heart and lymphatic surgeries. She is getting ready to retire but we are struggling. She has survived breast cancer at the age of forty-eight but she has to wait until she is sixty years old to be presented with her retirement funds. As much as I hate to admit it, not everyone lives to see the age of sixty. I think it is not only unfair but unreasonable to force a retiree to wait for their well-earned retirement check. Each day, many retired men and women live from unemployment check to unemployment check because they are unable to receive retirement check and disability due to the intense investigations that are performed within the military workplaces. With all honesty, I feel as though our veterans should be treated better. This is the land of the free and home of the brave, thanks to them; we should allow our military retirees the honor of having their retirement funds directly after they retire. With all due respect, I don't understand the point of waiting to give them their backbreaking earnings. A soldier in the army reserve must have completed 20 whole years of qualifying service in order to be eligible for non-regular retirement at the age of sixty. An estimated 7.8% of American soldiers suffer from PTSD, with women (10.4%) twice as likely as men (5%) to develop PTSD.

An estimated 22% of veterans commit suicide in the United States everyday. The point is: most citizens in the military do not make it to the age of sixty. In addition to that, members of the military who retire before 20 years get absolutely nothing. Therefore, the military is making the mistake of being half-generous to soldiers who survive to sixty and extremely unfair to those who do not make it past 20 years of service due to health or other issues that may cause early retirement.

As a military child, I fear that portable 401k retirement program, tuition assistance cuts, raises and other assistant programs will cause military soldiers to settle for ten years of service in the military and no longer strive for the 20 year or more retirement check. This may create more opportunities for more servicemen whom may not live to see sixty, but this will cause a generation with a lack of experience to lead, which may cause destruction to our armed forces.

Therefore, on my behalf, it is certainly best that the soldiers and servicemen are allowed to get their retirement checks directly after they serve their twenty plus years in the military. The abstruseness that comes along with the constant motivation of working as a serviceman should allow the soldiers guaranteed benefits and retirement checks directly after twenty or more years of service. Thank you for taking on the decisions and responsibilities that makes America great.

#2nextprez

Letters to the Next President 2.0 engaged and connected young people, aged 13-18, as they researched, wrote, and made media to voice their opinions on issues that mattered to them in the 2016 Presidential Election.

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